Killing owls. Sucks, right? But if we DON'T kill the barred owls, the spotted owls will totally die. This is our fault, humans!!!

"If we don't manage barred owls, the probability of recovering the spotted owl goes down significantly," said Paul Henson, Oregon state supervisor for Fish and Wildlife.

The agency's preferred course of action calls for killing 3,603 barred owls in four study areas in Oregon, Washington and Northern California over the next four years. The experiment requires a special permit under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which prohibits killing nongame birds.

The plan for saving spotted owls from extinction lists the barred owl as the No. 2 threat, after the loss of old growth forest habitat to logging and wildfire. But the Fish and Wildlife Service needs hard scientific evidence that killing barred owls will help before going forward with a long-term program."